[REVIEW] Boy Dolls 1 by Hibiki Wataru: It's 'Dolls'--in the plural--for a reason

Shounen Dolls © Hibiki Wataru/Hakusensha
[Serialized in LaLa]
Published in Indonesia as Boy Dolls by Elex Media

It's 'Dolls'—in the plural—for a reason
Boy Dolls 1 by Hibiki Wataru shoujo manga review by huamulan03 (Some rights reserved)
Rating: 7.5 of 10 doll costumes designed by Ageha

Long before the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate ruled Japan (that era started in 1336 for you and me), members of the Etou clan have been doll masters, gifted with the ability to hear (creepy) doll thoughts. At present, the family runs a doll consultancy and repair, and the heiress to the somewhat booming business is Etou Ageha.

When she's not auditioning for a Where, oh where is my soul mate? school girl part, Ageha mends abused toys and listens to their concerns. Now, how scintillating a conversationist could a doll be? The ones Ageha gossips with—to the humongous sweatdropping of hearing-impaired bystanders—are looking for lurve, sometimes in the wrong places (just like their human owners), frequently to the dolls' vexation. Seriously disgruntled dolls are actually what keeps Ageha the busiest. As the Doll Master, she has to exorcise vengeful dolls seeking to punish humans for not loving them enough. A gothic Romeo of a doll—Leo (Leonardo Angel Silvereye)—whom Ageha can transform into a human when night falls helps Ageha fulfill this public service.

Unfortunately, the sword-wielding Leo-sama is only a demi guardian because his partner—the beauteous Yuki—has long been lost. So aside from doll exorcism, Ageha also has to search for Leo's other half.

Thoughts and impressions
I have to laud Hibiki Wataru-sensei, creator of the similarly-supernatural genred Lys Lily, on two counts: first, making me invest in a shoujo title teeming with dolls and other (commercial mascot / anatomical skeleton model / sculpture) inanimates. I don't like dolls; I agree that they're the perfect vessels for possession (see Ghost Hunt). I wouldn't have even tried Boy Dolls had not tweeps wenzara-san and oebee_cherry-san egged me on.

To Sensei's credit, any Uncanny Valley Nightmare Fuel over sinister walking, talking, ranting dolls vanishes in the face of Is that a chibi Kuran Kaname?? Boy Doll Leo. Twelve pages into Moon Age (chapter) 1, I already lurved Leo and his « Are you really going to eat that cake? You already gained two kilos from yesterday's...» internal snark when in doll form and pure kewlness/selfish childishness when he's human.

Leo secures a third of my investment in Boy Dolls and you can bet that the emotional capital won't be pulled anytime soon. This gamble extends to Ageha-means-butterfly who uses butterfly-shaped katashiro to purify dolls. (I detest butterflies even more that I do dolls.) Ageha is your typical I just want to be normal; I want a boyfriend! heroine, but one with a work ethic rivaling that of a salaryman. Which makes her a tad, prolly would've gone Ganbatte! to The Velveteen Rabbit predictable. Still, unsurprising or not, she remains a non-irritant.

My second point: I lurve Sensei's take on the love triangle that, if you think about, is reasonable if you toe the Dolls Need Love line. Hint: the LaLa-serialized manga is titled Shounen Dolls (plural) for a reason; the same justification accounts for the remaining third of my emotional investment.

I speculate succeeding chapters will follow in the doll cases vein already established in volume 1 (The Case of the Crying Dolls in Moon Age 1; The Case of the Skeleton in Love in Moon Age 3; and The Case of the Retired Amusement Park Mascot in Moon Age 4), but I believe Sensei can still up the emotional stakes when she delves into Ageha's Because Destiny Sed So! Doll Master inheritance. Sensei already showed her mastery in emotional manipulation in Moon Age 2, when she effectively shifted the focus from Leo (not an easy task given Leo's flamboyance) and in the Dolls Discussion omake: faced with the possibility of Leo losing out to another doll, she drew this Awww!-some pic below (Click for a larger image):

And yup, I agree that that would increase Leo's rating in the popularity polls.

To Invest or Not to Invest
Rating: 7.5 of 10 doll costumes designed by Ageha
Verdict: GET! (at the very least, borrow)

Availability
Boy Dolls 1 went on sale 23 February 2011.

Iamque opus exegi,
~niki DBA 30uɐlnɯɐnɥ (花木蘭03)
Mistress of Adoxography

P.S. I also have to give Elex Media, which publishes this series in Indonesia, props for staying true to the main characters' image colors as stipulated by Sensei in the quarter-column free talks: Ageha's is red or salmon-pink; Leo's is black or dark violet; and Yuki's is white or lavender.

copyright information

Shounen Dolls © Hibiki Wataru. All rights reserved. First published in Japan in 2009 by HAKUSENSHA, INC., Tokyo
Indonesian translation rights in Indonesia arranged with HAKUSENSHA, INC., Tokyo through TOHAN CORPORATION, Tokyo.

other invaluable resources

Wikipedia · TV Tropes

Technorati tags

manga · shoujo · review · Boy Dolls (Shounen Dolls) · Hibiki Wataru · LaLa · LaLa DX · Hakusensha · Elex Media

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